The invention herein pertains to louvers for ventilating buildings and particularly pertains to elongated preformed louver members used in on-site louver assembly.
Houses, manufactured homes and other buildings require ventilation to prevent excess heat build-up and deterioration of building structures. Builders of houses and mobile home manufacturers often purchase triangle, octagon, square or other slatted louvers formed from wood, plastic, metal and the like. Openings are then framed on-site and the purchased louvers installed. Such louvers often distract from the appearance of a building or mobile home and are distasteful to homeowners and others. For example, a home which is finished with aluminum siding may have an attic louver formed from wood. The wooden louver is effective for ventilation but unsightly and must be constantly maintained with paint or the like to protect it and prevent it from deteriorating. Oftentimes such louvers in houses are difficult to reach due to their height and are left unattended for many years, ultimately having to be completely replaced.
Thus, with the problems and disadvantages of conventional louvers, the present invention was conceived and one of its objectives is to provide a weatherproof louver member which can be cut to size and installed on-site to form a louver assembly.
It is still another objective of the present invention to provide a louver member and method of use which allows flexibility in the size and shape of the louver assembly formed.
It is also an objective of the present invention to provide louver members which are manufactured for on-site delivery and which can be cut and installed using simple hand tools.
It is yet a further objective of the present invention to provide a louver member which is relatively inexpensive to manufacture and can be self-installed by relatively unskilled workers.
It is a further objective of the present invention to provide a louver assembly which blends with the trim of a house or other building and appears as an integral part thereof.
Various other objectives and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art as a more detailed description is set forth below.
The aforesaid and other objectives are realized by providing elongated louver members formed from aluminum or other suitable materials which can be delivered to a job-site, cut to the proper size and easily aligned and installed on a building to form, for example, an attic louver. The louver members have a somewhat inverted V-shape with the front extending outwardly from the rear approximately five centimeters. The rear of the louver member includes a series of apertures which allow air to pass into and out of the building attic. In the preferred form of the louver member a bracket is affixed to the rear which acts as a saddle for alignment and abutment with the adjacent louver member during installation.
The method of installation allows the user to cut a first louver member to a desired length using simple hand tools and thereafter to cut succeeding louver members to successively shorter lengths such as in the construction of a triangular louver assembly. Each individual louver member is then attached to a truss or the like with conventional fasteners to form the louver assembly. When completed the louver assembly is difficult to distinguish from conventional siding and does not detract from the building""s appearance.